extremes
by shiny happy fits of rage
Summary: As he stared at her, and the half-smile on her face and the way she played with the skin on her elbow, he realized that this was probably a trap. Prompt #3: ice cubes


**another oldie from tumblr but here ya go. havent looked at this in literally months so who knows**

* * *

"So, I would like to declare an official emergency, because _someone_ – and I am not naming names but it was definitely Connor, that sneaky bastard – decided it would be okay to eat the last popsicle and I hate to say it guys but I think we need to call in the Justice League."

The reaction was disturbingly underwhelming. Wally, out of breath, panicking, a crumpled cardboard box in his hands, expected several gasps of horror, possibly a lamp or some large pointy forks to be thrown at Connor, who would immediately beg for forgiveness. At least an _Oh, I'm so sorry, Wally_ would be nice. Instead, Raquel barked out a short laugh while she fanned herself with a ping pong paddle. Artemis and Connor didn't even look up from their game of go fish.

To his credit, Dick appeared to be appropriately shocked. Lying on the floor spread eagle, he blearily raised his head and made a sound that sounded uncannily like a rusty door opening. "What? But – but I need… cold?"

"Sorry," said Connor impassively. "Got any threes?"

Artemis glared at him, before reluctantly placing a card on the ground. "You son of a bitch." Connor collected the card in a manner that could almost be described as _gleeful_.

No one was listening. No one seemed to care. Did they not realize that they had a _crisis_ on their hands? It was over a hundred degrees outside, they had not a single frozen delicacy in the fridge, not even the dumb _Thin Ox_ organic ice cream bars that Kaldur bought, and he honestly might die. Wally, in a moment of a sort of panicked brilliance, chucked the empty _Pop!Sicles_ box at Connor. It hit him squarely in the back of the head. He turned around, and Wally was somewhat disappointed to see he wasn't crying, but rather vaguely annoyed.

"Am I missing something?" he asked. "Is there a rule or something against eating the last popsicle?"

Raquel shook her head at the same time Wally responded with a vehement "Yes!" He strode forward, tripping over Robin's ankle and landing on Artemis and Connor's card game.

"God _damnit_ , Wally!" yelled Artemis, leaping backwards. Connor might've moved if Wally hadn't seized the moment and grabbed his face.

"Eating the last popsicle in the box is a _sin,_ " he said hoarsely. "You probably don't know this because you _were_ a popsicle for a while there, but you _never_ eat the last of _anything_ , Connor. The last popsicle is for emergencies, used _only_ in desperate situations. What would have happened if I was poisoned and the only cure was that popsicle? What about that, Connor? Did you think about that?"

Artemis, from behind him, snorted. "What was the poison?"

"Oh sure, _laugh_ , you she-devil," snapped Wally. "You wouldn't be laughing if my life was on the line and the only antidote was right now sitting in Connor's perfectly sculpted abdomen."

"I have a girlfriend," said Connor faintly.

Artemis at this point apparently decided that she had a heart. "All right, this has become a wee bit too _idiotic_ for my taste, so… Wally, I'll show you my secret home recipe for popsicles."

Wally stopped shaking Connor's neck, and the phrase _too good to be true_ came to mind. "Really?" She didn't answer, already moving into the kitchen area. He scrambled up, kicking the remaining playing cards into the air, and followed her to the fridge at lightning speed (literally).

She was pulling orange juice and lemonade out of the fridge. "Do we have popsicle sticks?" she asked him, placing her hands on the counter as she looked up at him. Her ponytail wasn't as neat as it usually was, and she was wearing a _The Steve Miller Band_ concert t-shirt made cut choppily into a tank top.

He blinked. "Um. Uh, M'gann used to have some in the craft closet."

Artemis furrowed her brow. "We have a craft closet? Huh. Weird. Okay, well, whatever. We'll use toothpicks. They'll be picksicles. Or whatever."

Wally considered telling her she couldn't give him orders, then thought better of it. He couldn't risk the possibility of popsicles, no matter how skeptical he was of her choice of ingredients. He tugged open the freezer (it stuck sometimes) and pulled out the ice tray, dropping it on the counter where it landed with a clatter. Artemis, inspecting it, nodded once with a satisfied expression. "This will do nicely, Sous-Chef Wally. Now, the first step in making the perfect picksicle is to choose your weapon." She gestured to the two jugs of juice on the counter. "What flavor picksicle is on the menu for the day?"

As he stared at her, and the half-smile on her face and the way she played with the skin on her elbow, he realized that this was probably a trap. They had known each other for almost a month and not once had Artemis ever offered to do something nice for him. The opposite, actually. She once stole his favorite Iron Man collector's edition t-shirt, which she made into a kite that immediately plummeted into the ocean (like, she said, that stupid franchise will eventually). She sometimes liked to put new labels on his hair products in the locker room, so that he would use conditioner first and have gross hair for the rest of the day. She was eternally rude and generally peeved at him and, just yesterday, had called him an ugly butt monkey.

So, needless to say, he was more than a little confused by her and her picksicles. He opened and then closed his mouth, searching for the right words –

"Your choices are _orange juice_ and _lemonade_ ," said Artemis, speaking slowly like he was mentally unwell. She was still smiling, but it was more taunting. This was familiar.

Wally rolled his eyes. "Wow, a real zinger, Artemis! Where'd you get your joke, _13 Going on 30_?"

She frowned at him. "What the hell are you talking about? That was an actual question, Wally. Do you want lemonade picksicles or orange juice picksickles? Because standing around in the kitchen is fun and all, but I have better things to do like eat roadkill or watch every episode of _The Glee Project_. In like three point five seconds, I'm going to pick for you but –"

"Why are you being nice to me?" He said. He shifted uncomfortably, a little unnerved by what he'd just said (and how she might respond), but didn't take it back.

Artemis shrugged lightly, however, like restraining herself from rolling her eyes every time he so much as spoke was a flippant decision she made two minutes ago. Her hand stopped moving for a few moments though, and he thought she might be blushing. "Kicks," she said. "Plus I actually really liked those Thin Ox bars. Take your pick."

"Yeah okay, for _kicks_ ," he said skeptically. "No one in the history of forever has ever done anything simply for _kicks_. You think Rosa Parks just decided to not stand up for kicks? That Miyagi made Daniel wash all those cars just for kicks? Do you seriously believe Jack just doggie paddled around the life raft _that he totally could've fit on,_ looking at you James Cameron, for _kicks_?"

"Does this have a point?" drawled Artemis. She glanced up to the ceiling briefly, as if she was lamenting her dumb luck at getting stuck with him. As if she hadn't _offered_. He stared at her, at the silver gray bangles clanging together as she shook her wrist and her too irritated glare and the pink in her cheeks that was definitely not caused by the heat. She picked up the lemonade carton to take a swig, unscrewing the plastic cap and muttering to herself.

"The point is that there is always an ulterior motive, especially with you. No way in hell you'd ever make me frozen treats, not unless you were like, I don't know, suffering from amnesia, or in…" Suddenly Wally froze, one hand still in the air above his head where he'd been dramatically waving it about. His jaw dropped. "Oh my God, that's it. You have a _crush_ on me."

What came out of her throat was akin to the noise of someone, having been previously resuscitated from near drowning, coughing up salt water and spit. She choked, and the open lemonade carton dropped to the linoleum, falling over on its side and spilling its contents onto the floor.

"What happened," came Connor's weary call, like this was the twelfth time today a dull thump had come from the kitchen and he was sick of it.

"Nothing!" they both called at the same time. She growled at him.

He batted his eyelashes at her. "Wow, look at that! We said the same thing at the _exact_ same time! It's like we're –"

"I do _not_ have a crush on you," she hissed. "You're disgusting. You're despicable. You think it's funny when you fart and I once saw you eat ten pieces of fried dough in a single fifteen minute period."

Wally raised his eyebrows, grinning. "And that turns you on, right?"

"Argh!" She shoved him away and yanked open the island drawer angrily. Pulling out a dish towel, she got down on her knees and began to wipe up the lemonade with more aggression than was strictly necessary.

He stayed put and watched her, his hands behind his back, rocking back and forth on his heels cheerily. "The real question is when you developed this attraction to me. Was it like a love at first sight thing? I bet it was – and, oh my God, all of the times you said 'I hate you' and 'I hope you don't live long enough to reproduce' was a _cover_. Wow, you almost had me. I'm impressed. Am I in your diary? I totally _am,_ aren't I? What did you write? Mrs. Wally West? Artemis & Wally West? The West family? And – _oooh,_ wait wait wait, okay – what about me attracts you most? Be totally honest, and its okay if there are multiple things, don't worry –"

 _Smack_. Wally reeled back, closing his eyes to keep the lemonade from getting in his eyes. Gingerly, he lifted the wet towel from his face and wiped his face with his sleeve. "While I do feel cooler now, I don't really –"

"If you don't stop talking _right now_ ," she said, her voice low and clenched with rage, "I will personally take the spoon, the _chipped_ spoon from the drawer and use it to scoop out your own eyeballs and then feed them to you. I, do not, under any circumstances, feel a _smidge_ of either emotional or physical attraction to you, and I never will. Do you hear me? Not here, not there, not –"

"Would you like me in a house?" he asked.

For a few seconds, she just stared at him, dumbfounded with anger, and Wally winced just the slightest bit, in preparation of what was surely to come. Come it did. Artemis, seething, launched herself at him, attacking him with bony fists and fingernails. He cowered, crouching down to cover his head, but it didn't stop her from punching him several times with considerable force and digging her nails into his forearm.

"Ow – _ow,_ Artemis, get off me! That _hurts_ , you maniac, get off -!" Reaching up with one hand while still protecting himself with the other, he grasped about blindly with one hand, at last managing to latch on to her wrist. Staggering up, he grabbed onto her other arm, which was trying to land a punch in his eye, and faced her. "Would you calm down? Artemis, I –"

"You are an _asshole_ ," she snarled, jerking her arms away and standing back. "You are so high off your own supply that you can't even _comprehend_ the fact that someone doesn't like you as much as you like yourself. _Like_ you, Wally? I hate you. I _hate_ you. You are low, miserable scum, and I –" She cut herself short, shaking her head and making a face, like she was the one with lemonade in her eyes.

Wally was aghast. "Are you crying?"

She made a noise of exasperation, but to him it seemed more self-directed. "Just… just make your own damn picksicles, okay?" With that, Artemis turned on her heel and stormed out of the kitchen into the hallway.

It was at that moment that it occurred to Wally that maybe he should've told her he liked her as well.

* * *

Artemis woke up at three am in mess of sweaty sheets and pieces of clothing discarded in frustration to impatient knocking on her bedroom door. She shuddered awake and groaned, glaring groggily at the ceiling. She'd only fallen into a restless, uneasy sleep, and when she searched for the shorts she kicked off in the night she did so with a sense of bitterness. Tugging on her shorts, she half-stumbled, half-hopped to her bedroom door and swung it open.

There was no one there. The hallway was empty, pitch black save for the emergency lights that lined the floor. An activated alarm blinked in and out of her line of sight blearily. From the living room the music from _Narnia_ floated in; Connor had fallen asleep watching movies again. Artemis sighed and rubbing her eyes. Either she was dreaming or this was another one of the secret codes M'gann had made up for them that Artemis could never remember. She turned to go back to bed –

\- and caught sight of the ice tray at the foot of her door. To her intense embarrassment, her breath got caught in her throat, like five ice cubes on the ground were something rare and magical. "Shut up," she muttered aloud, and suddenly she hated herself for reinforcing the unfounded claims Wally had crowed at her earlier today. She shook her head, crouching down on the ground and picking up the tray warily with one hand.

The toothpicks were a little all over the place, and one of the ice cubes wasn't cubed shaped as much splatter shaped. Artemis scoffed at his amateurism. If he hadn't gone all third degree on her she could've taught him how to do it properly, that idiot. It looked like he'd gotten food in them too. She snorted, picking a picksickle up to examine it closer. There was an alphabet soup S noodle suspended in the middle of the orange juice ice cube. Artemis frowned. She picked up the one next to it. An O. R. R.

Almost haltingly, she picked up the last picksicle. The Y hung upside down in a frozen state of suspension.

A breeze in the hallway blew the free strands of her hair into her face. Artemis smiled.


End file.
